Best Local Girl Gone Bad

Kacie Starr Triplett

Everything about former 6th Ward alderwoman Kacie Starr Triplett seemed so promising at the outset. She was one of the city's youngest politicians when she was first elected in 2007 — just 26 years old, poised and energetic about serving the city. Then she abruptly left office, announcing that she'd taken another job. Months later, it finally came out that Triplett was also pretty energetic about looting her campaign coffers and using the cash for personal expenses. The money went to pay her mortgage, for her credit-card bills, her salon and spa visits, and for her clothes, shoes and jewelry. The amount was somewhere between $8,000 and $18,900. In a statement she issued at the time of the release of a Missouri Ethics Commission report on the misuse of her campaign funds, Triplett wrote she'd done it out of "greed and selfishness" rather than need, and called her actions "indefensible." Couldn't have said it better ourselves.